Starting out and gathering reference

I decided what view I wanted to use first of all.  A curved bay with golden sands, cliffs and a distant house with turf-topped headlands.  Jersey, in the Channel Islands, has plenty of coastal gems like this to choose from.

Next, I gathered reference of the Thrift flower (Armeria maritima) up close, and of clumps of thrift heading into the distance.

Reference materials

Rough Illustration

Working on Fluid 100 hotpress watercolour paper,with a Pentel P205 mechanical pencil, I drew up the scene.  Landscape first, distant thrift next, and finally a few flowering heads which would be executed with botanical detail in the foreground.

Pencil rough

Jersey Post like to see colour roughs of each element in a postage stamp commission, so I worked into the colours using light watercolour.  I use Winsor and Newton watercolour pans and half pans, and adore my Winsor and Newton Series 7 paintbrushes (a number 2 handles bigger areas of colour, and a number 1 and 000 manage detail).

Colour rough

The trick with landscapes, which I admit are not my forte, is not to overwork them or go too dark.  Always, the most pronounced contrast will be in the near foreground.  This means you have to ensure distant elements (the house on the shore, the waves breaking on the beach) are softened.  I still struggle with this.

I provided jersey Post with the colour rough, and in a suggested layout.  This helps them to visualise the illustration in context.

Colour rough in layout

Working into the Final

Once approved, it was time to take the colour rough to final stage.

This involves adding a lot more detail, and making sure the thrift jumps out from the background.  There are several tricks I used here, some more successfully than others.

Flattening out the background

To ensure that the thrift flowers take centre stage, and hold the attention, you need to “knock-back” the other parts of the illustration.  I used a series of very pale watercolour washes.  These have two purposes; first, they dull any white areas in the landscape, allowing the whites in the flowers to glow more prominently.  Second, they add a soft colour unity to the background.  This tricks the eye into seeing the landscape as a whole, and as slightly separate to the thrift blooms in the foreground.

Pale background wash drying on the landscape (note the shine from the wet paint on the right of the painting)

I spent a long time fiddling with these layers of very pale transparent colour.  The bright pink colour of the distant thrift made it impossible to simply put a clean blue or green wash over everything.  Those pinks still needed to glow, but not to jump out at you.  This means you have to balance the wash.  Blue enough to unite and knock back the landscape, not so blue that it makes the distant thrift purple.

Likewise, the structure of the composition meant the thrift in the immediate foreground was flanked and backed by more thrift.  Separating these elements without compromising the pink of the flowers was really hard.  Darkening behind the focus flowers is needed, but the risk of messing up the flowers behind them is high.  Go slowly, and build up layers of colour.  Re-appraise as you progress.

A few pale blue (Landscape components) and pale pink (background thrift) washes later, and I’d done most of what was possible.

Adding Detail

Another way to make the foreground jump out at you is to get really crisp and clear detail in the flowers at the front of the illustration.  Higher contrast is required, as is botanical accuracy.  Luckily, I’ve done sketchbook illustrations of thrift in the past.  These are vital when it comes to figuring out the anatomy of the globe-like flowering-heads.  I also refer to the excellent line drawings of Stella Ross-Craig.

There’s been a lot of illustrating of maritime species recently, so the Thrift I completed for Field Studies Council’s leaflet on Sea-side flowers was helpful too.

Thrift Armeria maritmum completed for FSC

As always, at this point in the process there are lots of moments of panic.  It doesn’t feel like it’s coming together right.  The flowers look blurry, mucky, anatomically wrong.  How on earth to get the stamens (which are pale) to show up?  Each of these challenges has to be calmly worked through.

Thrift flower detail with detail picked out and stamens added

It’s always a fine balance between over-working an illustration (which kills it and sucks the life and brightness from it) and getting enough crisp detail in there.  I used a touch of white gouache to bring the stamens out.  A pale top-wash of a ridiculoulsy bright pink (Doctor Martin’s Hydrous inks) helped make the petals glow.

Completed illustration with reference and Doctor Martin’s ink just visible on the right.

Finishing the Thrift Landscape

Eventually you reach a point where you accept that it’s good enough.  It’s a funny thing, even now, having been a professional illustrator for 25 years, I’m always slightly disappointed that the illustration on the page is never as good as the one my mind had conjured up.  I think this is common with everyone who tries their hand at creating art, whether professional or a beginner.

Completed illustration, drying in the sun

Often it’s a good idea to go and have a swift cup of tea when you think you’re done.  When you return, you see the illustration in a slightly new light, and generally a more favourable one.  Which is lucky!

Conclusion

Using a wide array of illustration techniques allowed me to complete this landscape.  Watercolour washes, ensuring contrast and fine detail were right in the foreground, tiny details in gouache…  When I saw it in context, on the presentation pack, I was really pleased.  The design team at Jersey Post did a brilliant job with the lettering and layout.

I made a film of the later stages in completing this illustration, and you can hear me talking through these challenges and trying different approaches.

The post Jersey Post: Illustrating Thrift appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Illustrating stamps

Each stamp issue involves illustrating six stamps, a presentation pack, an envelope for the First Day Cover, and a date stamp.  This is the sixth series of stamps I’ve done for Jersey Post, so I’m used to the sizes and the exacting nature of the work.

Coastal Flowers: Stamps

The six species chosen for the stamps were all beauties.  One of the main challenges with illustrations for postage stamps is to make sure the composition works.  You need to leave room for the queen’s head (the Gudgeon), and the name of the species illustrated in both English and Latin in the bottom right hand corner.

Common Centaury stamp

Seaside Daisy stamp

The illustrations are all completed far larger than the reproduction size, and to an identical format.  It may not sound that hard, but cramming very differently shaped plants into the same layout, without making them look odd or crushed, is tricky.

Sea Rocket stamp

Sea-holly Stamp

Another challenge is that each flower requires a background.  This needs to echo the plant habitat, and be clear, but unobtrusive.  Sand is easy enough; an ochre colour with splatterings from a toothbrush.  With shingle, each pebble needs illustrating.  If the plant grows on coastal grassland, you need to show the grass without distracting from the focus of the illustration.

Yellow Horned-poppy stamp

Rough Star-Thistle stamp

You also have to keep in mind that the illustration will be reduced to 3cm x 2.5cm.  Anything too complicated will cease to register clearly.  Of all these six designs, the one which suffered most from reduction at reproduction is the Rough Star thistle.  It still reads, but the composition was a little too complicated for the final size of the stamp.

The photo below shows me illustrating the poppy, and gives an idea of the size of the original artwork.

Illustrating the Yellow Horned-Poppy

Coastal Flowers: First Day Cover

The illustration for the first day cover (FDC) appears on the corner of an envelope.  This envelope has the whole series of stamps poppped onto it, which are franked and sent out to collectors and post offices.

One of my favourite seaside flowers featured here, Sea stock Matthiola incana.

It’s such a delicate flower, with the barely-mauve petals, and the soft blue-green leaves.

It’s interesting to note that lots of coastal plants have blueish, hairless, and waxy leaves.  Please check out my blog on salt-tolerant plants (Halophytes) for more on this. !! LINK!!

The format for this illustration is far freer.  It simply needs to look classy in the corner of the envelope, and not get in the way of the six stamps or the text.

FDC envelope featuring Sea Stock

Coastal Flowers: Presentation Pack

The presentation pack featured a cliff view with Thrift.  I’ve recently written a blog on the processes and challenges involved in completing this illustration which I’ll publish soon, and made a film of me working on the image.

Again, the original is larger than the reproduced illustration, although less than with the stamps artworks.

This presentation pack can be stored in a ring binder, and has the series of six mint stamps within it.

Coastal Flowers: Date stamp

The last component of this “Post and Go” stamp issue is the date stamp.  This is what gets printed on top of the stamps on the first day cover, and echoes the theme of the issue.  I chose the Yellow Horned-poppy for the date stamp as it was the clearest and simplest of the flowers.  More than any other element of the stamp design process, the date stamp needs to be extremely simple, and it’s vital that it doesn’t obscure the stamps it’ll be franking.

This one made me laugh a bit.  Initially I submitted an illustration of the flower with its seed pod.  Then the designer and I had a re-think – there’s just something a little too potentially rude about the image.  I revised it and took out the seed case, and this is the illustration used for the final.

Artwork for date stamp, with then without seed pod.

Conclusion

The Jersey Post Coastal Flowers issue was such a fun project to work on, I really enjoy working with Jersey Post.  I’m pleased with the designers who’ve done good things with the text and presentation pack.  I love the species which were chosen and it also tied in with coastal flowers I was illustrating for Field Studies Council, so I had all my maritime flora reference to hand.  It inspired me to research and write a blog on salt-loving plants, the Halophytes.

I hope Jersey Post will continue to use me as an illustrator on their stamp issues.  The work is exacting and enjoyable, the pay is good, and you never know what theme the next issue will focus on!

The post Jersey Post: Coastal Flowers Stamp issue appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

All illustrations in this blog are copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017 and must not be reproduced without the express permission of Jersey Post.

For other step by step botanical illustration blogs, click here.

First draw your blackberry

First, make sure your drawing of the blackberry is botanically correct, and you’re clear as to the size and shape of each of the druplets.  A druplet is one individual part of an aggregate fruit such as a blackberry or raspberry.  (For more on fruit definitions, check out my blog.)

Pencil rough of the Jersey bramble Rubus caesarius.  Copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

I draw up my subjects with a mechanical pencil.  I like the Pentel P205 with an H or HB lead.  In this case I’ve painted on Fabriano Artistico.

Adding the leaves, stems, and background

First, I needed to put in a pale blue background wash.  I used Cereulean blue Winsor and Newton watercolour diluted with water, then allow this to dry fully.

Blackberry with background painted in                       copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

I like to paint leaves and stems first, and to save the fun part of an illustration til the end, in this case it means painting the berry comes last.

Blackberry with buds and leaves completed.              copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

Painting the Berries

The first step is to mix a good dark purple, and using a very fine tipped brush (this is my trusty Winsor and Newton Series 7 (number 1) paintbrush, outline the edge of each drupelet.  This colour is a mix of purple, Alizarin crimson, and Winsor blue.  I tend to favour Winsor and Newton watercolours, from pans.

Outlining each drupelet of the blackberry                   copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

Next, have a look to see where the light falls on the fruit, and plot in the shape of that highlight on each individual drupelet.  Be sure to leave the highlighted areas free of paint; your whites (and highlights) are the untouched paper.  Look for the distinct shapes of these bright areas, outline them with your paintbrush.

Drawing the shapes of the highlights on each drupelet   copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

Colour in the areas which are NOT your highlights with the same purple black as before.  Remember to leave a thin crescent of white paper around the edge of each drupelet, this makes each part look ripe and round.

The dark areas of each drupelet are coloured in with a rich purple-black                         copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

Adding colours to the berries

Mix up a pale Cobalt blue, perhaps with a touch of black or purple in. Making sure you don’t consume the areas of white, paint a margin of this next to each area of dark paint.  This makes the gradation between dark shadow and bright highlight look more realistic.

Put a margin of pale Cobalt blue around each highlight    copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

Do this for each drupelet, and remember that on the shadowed side of the berry there’ll be less white gleaming in the light, so make the margin colour a touch darker.

Each drupelet now has a blue sheen                         copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

Mix up a wet magenta; I used Cobalt violet and Opera rose.  Using it in different levels of dilution, pop a thin margin of this pink on the right hand side of the central shine of each drupelet in the berry.

Add magenta, very wet, to the fruit                           copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

This adds the warm red to the blackberry without compromising the shiny black of the fruit.

All the drupelets have had pink added                       copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

Before putting final tweaks to the berry, I want to paint in the red and green unripe blackberries which are also on the sprig.

Blackberry with red and green berries unpainted         copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

Adding highlights

Using a thick-ish mix of Permanent white gouache (I like Winsor and Newton gouache), apply a hairline of this to the outside perimeter of each drupelet, pressing a little harder when passing next to the highlighted parts.

Adding white gouache highlights to a drupelet            copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

Breathe a sigh of relief, you’ve painted a shiny blackberry.  Now you can eat your reference!

This is the final artwork of the Jersey bramble for the Jersey Post “Fruits and Berries” series of stamps; and one of my favourites in the set.              copyright Jersey Post (www.jerseystamps.com) 2017

I hope this breakdown of the process involved in getting blackberries painted is helpful, they truly are a lovely botanical illustration subject to tackle.

For more on creating the “Fruits & Berries” issue for Jersey post, have a look at my blog.

The post Step by step: Blackberry appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

The fruits and berries that needed illustrating were the Dewberry Rubus caesius, the Elderberry Sambucus nigra, the Wild strawberry Fragaria vesca, the Jersey bramble Rubus caesarius, Sloes Prunus spinosa, and Black bryony Dioscorea communis.

All the botanical illustrations in this blog are copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017, and must not be reproduced without their express permission.

Sloes artwork for one of the stamps                                copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

This commission gave me the chance to wander the countryside around Hay-on-Wye, gathering specimens to paint; luckily the job came in during the autumn months!

Desk whilst illustrating the Dewberry stamp artwork

I also illustrated a First Day cover (an illustration for the corner of the First Day Cover envelope); this was a sprig of Hawthorn berries Crataegus monogyna.

Hawthorn berries; botanical illustration for the First Day Cover of Jersey Post’s stamp issue-copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

Here’s a detail of some of the wonderfully prolific and vibrant red berries this sprig of Hawthorn carried.

Detail of Hawthorn berries                                              copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

Illustrating Black Bryony

One of the plants I painted was the Black bryony.  You often see the startling orange berries of this plant in hedgerows.  It was important to show the variation in berry colour; green through yellow to an orange red.  I also had a lot of fun with the tendrils that this plant grows.  I love using these to help when composing an illustration.

As always, painting the leaves began with a layer of tiny paint marks, building up and marking the areas of dark.

Painting the first layer of green on a Black bryony leaf copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

Next, I put a yellower and more dilute mix of green over the entire leaf.  I use Winsor and Newton paints, and a Winsor and Newton series 7 paintbrush.

Brighter green wet wash applied to the leaf.  Copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

The angled stems and tendrils get plotted in next.  As always I leave the fun berries to the end.

Painting in stems and tendrils of Black bryony                   copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

The berries needed to look bright and smooth, so I spent a long time building up the colour with endless tiny brush strokes in orange and red, following the shape of the fruit.

Final illustration of Black bryony                                      copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

Illustrating the Elderberry

Another lovely plant was the Elderberry. I love the crimson of the stems of this plant, especially in contrast to the shiny black berries.  Getting the shine right on each berry was a challenge.

Paining each Elderberry                                                  copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

It was a tricky plant to arrange in the format of a postage stamp, and required the positioning of the leaflets behind the berries, always a difficult task.

Elderberry artwork                                                         copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

Presenting the illustrations in context

Another part of the commission is to illustrate the Presentation pack, the shiny decorated sleeve in which newly issued postage stamps can be delivered.  This features Rowan berries Sorbus aucuparia, Sloe Prunus spinosa, Bramble Rubus fruticosus, and Goji berries Lycium barbarum; all of which grow wild in Jersey.

Presentation pack with Rowan, Goji, Sloe and Bramble      copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

One of the things I like to do mid way through a job such as this, is create a mock up of the stamps to ensure they look alright as a series, and to be certain the text and images work well together.  Here is the rough of the stamp layout, an aid to the commissioners when they look at these detailed roughs and decide what feedback is required.

Layout of stamps at Colour rough stage                           Copyright Jersey Post (www.Jerseystamps.com) 2017

The published stamps, first day cover, and presentation pack arrived in the post just this week.  To say I am delighted with how they look once the designers have produced the issue is an understatemant, they’ve done a fabulous job with my paintings!

This job was a joy, I really love working with Jersey Post, they give interesting subjects, long lead times, and treat their artists really well – what more could an illustrator ask for?

The post Botanical Illustrations of Fruit for Jersey Post appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Past stamp issues completed for Jersey Post

I’ve worked with Jersey Post before.  I completed a series of botanical illustrations of roses for them back in 2010 (copyright Jersey Post 2010).

They commissioned me again in 2011.  This time it was a series of illustrations for their 2011 Forests issue (copyright Jersey Post 2011).

Dragonfly and damselfly stamp issue

However, this new series, which came out yesterday, was definitely one of my favourite jobs to date.  Stamps, which require detail and colour, combined with entomological subject matter and a decent rate of pay?  Heaven.

After accepting the commission I was sworn to secrecy.   Stamps are a competitive world, and illustrators regularly sign confidentiality agreements.  This stops other countries’ postal departments from stealing one other’s ideas.

The brief came next.  I had a list of species to include, and each stamp value had one species assigned to it.   The accessories (first day covers and envelopes) were open to interpretation.  This meant I had a great deal of freedom in the compositions, and could choose whichever dragonflies from the list that I wanted to illustrate.

Dragonfly stamps: Gathering reference and advice

I was aided every step of the way by the erudite, accessible and endlessly patient Professor Mill of the British Dragonfly Society.

The first step was to source reference.  With dragonflies, this isn’t as easy as with some other insects (like butterflies or beetles).   The colours of  Odonata are chemical-based rather than physical.  So once a dragonfly dies, its colour fades within minutes. (Butterfly colour comes from thousands of tiny scales which remain the same shade for decades or centuries after death).   Museum specimens are great for dragonfly wing reference, but no good for colour.

I was helped by the best book on Dragonflies and Damselflies out there, Britain’s Dragonflies by Dave Smallshire & Andy Swash.  I consulted lots of photographs taken by extremely talented entomological photographers.  All very generously gave me permission to use their photos as reference.  Steve Routledge and Tim Caroen spring to mind.

Once I’d assembled my ref., I drew up the pencil roughs.  This is tricky as you need to make the animal bold but also leave room for the price, the queen’s head, and for the name of the insect in English and in latin.  It involves lots of layering of acetate sheets to ensure a word won’t overlap a wing, and that the queen’s nose isn’t touching a dragonfly leg.

Before applying any colour, I sent these off to Professor Mill.   He asked for the changes required to make the animals biologically accurate.  As a scientific illustrator, I always strive for accuracy, but it this case it was paramount.  The BDS were putting their name to the stamps.  Details like anal clasper shape, colour of the wing vein, position of the wing spot, and exact shape and colour on each abdominal segment were vital to illustrate correctly.

Damsel & Dragonfly stamps: Colour roughs

Next, the colour roughs.  These need to be worked up for submission to Jersey Post, but not be as fully worked as the finals.  The trick was to make them good enough to be “ok’d” by both Jersey Post and the BDS.   I could then use the same artwork and take it to the final stage.  Sometimes changes are too large, and you need to start afresh, but that’s part of the job.  The main challenge here were the instances where I’d got the colour of some part of the animal slightly wrong, and it needed tweaking.  If the colour needed to become muddier or darker this was fine, but where it had to be brighter or lighter it was a challenge.  (For more on this, check out my blog on fixing mistakes Natural History Illustration: Fixing errors).

Dragonfly and Damsels: Working up the final illustrations

Working into the finals is more a matter of intensifying colours and adding detail than anything else.  It takes time, but is the easiest part of the job.  As always, I use Winsor and Newton series 7 brushes and watercolour paints, and Doctor Martin inks for the vibrant colours of the dragonfly and damselfly bodies.

Below are the final artworks for the damsels and dragons stamp series.  I’ve supplied these without the queen’s head and text and price.  (There are copyright implications relating to reproducing the illustrations in the same format as the finished stamp.)  However, I include the Beautiful demoiselle to show how they look in their final layout.   The accessory artworks are allowed to be reproduced as is.  In all cases, copyright lies with Jersey Post.

It’s important to note here that it is almost unheard of for me to sell my copyright.  There are enormous issues currently surrounding companies demanding copyright unnecessarily.  Postage stamps are almost the only exception I make to this rule, and this is because stamps are, in effect, currency.  Thus a request for copyright in this case makes sense.

Dragonfly and Damsels: Supplementary artwork for the stamp issue

The supplementary artwork required is things like covers for the mint stamps, and first day cover illustrations to go on envelopes carrying the stamps.  Selvedge (the edge of the stamps) also needs to be illustrated.

I am really proud of this body of work, and very much look forward to working with Jersey Post (and any other stamp design company if they’re interested!) on further issues in the future.

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